Taming a Sea Horse

14

Buckey's pulse was strong and I propped him in the shade against the east wall of the bowling alley. The bartender with the tattoos brought me a bucket of water and some ice and a rag and I sponged Buckey off and soaked my hands and waited. I was sitting on my heels with both hands in the ice-water bucket when Buckey opened his eyes.

I didn't move. His eyes slowly focused on me. I put the ice bucket aside and rested my forearms on my thighs and folded my hands. His eyes moved past me. There was no one else. The big fight was over. The audience had gone away. He looked back at me.

"I'm going to kill you," he said. I nodded.

"When you're sleeping or getting laid or walking along not thinking about it, I'm going to be there and blow the back of your fucking head away."

I nodded again. I had my gun back on my belt and sitting still on my heels I reached around with my right hand and took it out and pointed it at the tip of Buckey's nose and said, "Maybe."

Buckey looked at the muzzle of the gun two inches from his face. He didn't say anything.

I said, "Now I want you to tell me about your daughter, Ginger."

"I ain't telling you fucking shit," he said. But it was weak.

"You've been doing that," I said. "And look what it got you. I want to know about the whorehouse you sold your kid to."

"She's dead," he said.

"Yeah, she was a street hooker in New York City and somebody shot her."

"So what's the fucking difference?" Buckey said.

"Fatherhood rests but lightly on you, Vern," I said. And I thumbed the hammer back on my gun. It made the cylinder turn one notch and Vern could see the copper-jacketed slug go under the hammer. "What whorehouse?"

Buckey shrugged. "Place called Magic Massage in Portland. I didn't sell her. It was a finder's fee."

"Place still there?" I said.

"Was last time I was down to Portland, on Congress Street, around the corner from Franklin."

I smiled, and turned the gun away from his face and let the hammer down gently. Then I flipped the cylinder out, turned it so there was an empty chamber under the hammer, closed the gun and put it back on my hip. Vern watched me.

"You had a fucking gun why didn't you use it," he said. "How come you come on to me without it, if you had one?"

"Wanted to see if you really were the toughest guy in Lindell," I said. I stood up. "See you around, Vern."

"That's all?" Buckey said. "You come up here all this way to fight me and find out about a whorehouse in Portland?"

"Un huh."

"You're fucking crazy, man. What do you care about a whorehouse in Portland? What the fuck you care about some dead whore in New York?"

"Vern," I said, "it was a pleasure to punch your lights out. It was such a pleasure that I may come up sometime and do it again."

I turned and left him sitting slumped against the wall and headed for my car and drove away, back south. Toward Portland.